


Memory is a Super-highway

by ERNest



Series: diagonal fall [3]
Category: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Related Fandoms, Wonderland: A New Alice - Murphy/Boyd/Wildhorn
Genre: Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, F/M, Marital Unrest, Memory Alteration, Synesthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice has been getting migraines lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. She Breaks Inwards

She has been getting migraines more and more often, and she has no idea where the twisting vision comes from, but afterwards she gets these images that seem too real to be only ideas. She has a desire to cheat at chess with obscure technicalities, though she doesn’t even know the normal rules. She suddenly has a new spirit, all of these different voices that are not hers and the stories that must be told lest they be forgot again (why did she think again? she has never cared about a linebacker or his endzone dance.) Her book ends up being a mix of nightmarish whimsy and flimsy sentence structure, almost as if two people have been working on the manuscript.  
And then she gets the worst one she’s ever experienced. This headache makes her feel physically ill. She gets herself two ibuprofens at once because it’s bad enough to deserve it (that’s not going to make it go away, will it?). She panics for no good reason, but it’s possible that she’d forgotten a very good reason through a haze of pulsing colors. She closes her eyes as if she will feel better but nothing can make this better. In the darkness behind her eyelids, she holds onto the blue clanking of the radiator, the only thing that makes sense. But she has never felt so guilty as she does for trying to catch hold of those bouncing jewels. Somehow she has ended up on the floor. She stays there, cheek pressed against the hardwood, trying to pay attention to the flow of the lines.

He finds her there, minutes or hours later, crouched in the corner of the living room. “Alice?” he says, and he gently pries her hands away from her tearstained face. He holds them in his own, because her fingers are like ice cubes.  
She looks up at him doubtfully. “Jack?” she asks like she can’t believe he’s there. “Jack, it _hurts_ ,” she whispers.  
“Don’t worry,” he tells her and he wraps himself around her, stroking her back “It’s going to be okay, I promise. These headaches pass, they always do. I’ll sit right here until it’s gone. Okay?”  
She twists around to see him because there’s something important that she only just remembered. “Oh god,” she says desperately and she grabs him by the shoulders and pins him down, as she tries to kiss every part of him so she can own him and become a part of his skin, but the long scratches do not make a doorway for her, and this isn’t the way she wanted it to be, this need, this hunger for something that ought to be trustingly asked and freely given. She can’t stop herself because this is something she had no idea she has wanted for _so_ long.  
She is grateful to feel his hands pushing her away from him, because it means something is ending. He gets himself disentangled from her and without his touch to drive her on, she calms down enough to be horrified at herself. She scrabbles backwards until they are staring at each other from opposite walls. He wipes away blood. Hers or his, she can’t see. He is shaken, clearly, but he is trying not to show it, which she hates. She’d rather he rage at her, like she deserves.  
“Alice.” he says carefully to keep from flying apart. “What just happened?”  
She breaks inwards, thinking about it. “I…Jack honey, I don’t know. It was…” But what it was, she couldn’t say. She doesn’t really feel well enough to get up and run out of the apartment, but she can’t stay in the same room as his disappointment.


	2. Breathes Her In

He doesn’t understand what’s happening to her, but he knows he can’t leave her alone and scared. He looks up migraines and MPD because sometimes she seems to be a totally different person, but always someone he loves. But it’s funny. Sometimes the way she talks reminds him of someone from – from before. He calls his mother because she always knows what to do, but her advice is to make brussel sprouts soup and he thinks that headache or not, she’ll thank him not to give her that tasteless concoction.  
Sometimes her head hurts her so much that all he can do is hold her while she whimpers through the pulsing and mutters about crumbs in the butter. And then she breathes normally again and so he kisses her before she goes to lock herself in her writing room and makes something of the pain she feels.

After, she flinches under his touch, as if she’s terrified of him, but he knows it’s a fear that whatever she attacked him with is going to surface again. He doesn’t bother to tell her that it’s okay; that he trusts her always, because she wouldn’t believe him, and sometimes the erratic heartbeat of her fingernails still wakes him, shivering.  
She still gets the headaches. He can tell in the way her hands slip under the table so that one can pinch the other and with any luck _keep her here_. He knows that’s what she’s doing because she told him about it, back when they started happening. She seems to consist of nothing but coping mechanisms held together by strands of self-doubt. But she doesn’t mention it, so he doesn’t either. He also doesn’t mention that sometimes he wishes he could still be the one to lie next to her and regulate her breath to his own. It’s not the sort of thing he should be missing, but he tells himself that she shouldn’t have to go through this on her own either.

“Damnit, because they laid me off!” His confession hangs in the air but he’s glad someone told the truth in this house because it’s grown toxic with all the secrets they kept, or just things they should have said but found reasons not to.  
“What?” Alice stands up too quickly and starts to fall dizzily. He is immediately there to catch her and she sags against him. So he breathes her in, just breathes her in, and is sad that this makes him as grateful as it does.  
 _this is enough_ he hopes, _if i can’t support the ones i love, i can at least be this_.  
She nuzzles into his chest and he swells with happiness, but the next moment breaks when he feels her startle and she ducks out of his arms to say “I don’t want to hurt you again.”  
“What about now? Aren’t you hurting me _now_?” he wants to ask, but doesn’t.


	3. Shuts Her Out

Mom’s always tired now, and Chloe just wanted to play with dolls. But Alice starts crying and covers her eyes for the pain of it. She tells her to keep telling the story. “It’ll be better than waiting for it to go away.”  
“But MO-om, it’s no good if you don’t do the voices.” She’s so good she can make Chloe believe anything she says when she’s in character.  
“I’m sorry, honey, I’ve just got enough voices in my head at the moment. I don’t need to add any more.”  
So she gets used to being on her own and if her lips can’t build a castle, they make an acceptable manor estate.


	4. He Disappoints

But he’s a computer guy; people _need_ him! When he started out it seemed like such a field that it would never go far, but he loved it so he didn’t even care. And in this millennial age, everyone is ties to technology, so he should presumably never be out of work for long. But the rules are different when anyone halfway across the world can do the same things he does.  
When he tells Alice, the first thing he can see in her eyes is disappointment and he doesn’t blame her because he should have been the breadwinner. He should have been, he should have, he should, any number of things. And when she stands up too quick, he is there to catch her and he sees the happiness they once shared, that maybe he can still catch before it falls away. The next moment, she scrambles from him and all he can see is regret, both hers and his.  
Jack stays around the house for a few days, because he has no office to report to. He searches for job listings online and eats a ham sandwich. The only good thing about this is that he gets to see Chloe as soon as she gets home from school.

Love is not magic, and it is not the solution to every problem, but it is a damned good reason to look for one. When he promised Alice that he would be her One Knight, he meant it. It wasn’t just the good times he promised, but the bad and the rainy and every time in between. They may have hit a rough patch for now, but they’ll get over it. Divorce never enters his mind. It’s just not an option as far as he’s concerned.  
“I love you.”  
“I don’t want to hurt you.”  
Because he loves her, he does not ask her if she thinks she’s not hurting him _now_.


	5. She Regrets

She lost control and hurt the one who mattered to her more than anyone in the world. It’s weak and foolish to blame her sickness and a pounding head that demanded violent comfort. So she apologizes the only way she knows how, which is to remove herself from any situation where it could happen again.  
The headaches are the worst because they are when she most wants him, and these moments are the most dangerous. She’s not herself so she could do anything at all and only half remembers when she comes to her own mind. She has a duty to stay here and stay sane for as long as she can manage. She pinches one hand with another and it works for long enough to keep them safe.


	6. Here and Now

Not that she’s complaining exactly, but Alice knows that the headaches will not return, after the dream. She will not have to face the pulsing behind her eyes, or the false memories like water, or the sudden dizziness that left her reeling. And she’s not complaining, exactly, but for some reason she’s not as happy as she should be that they are gone.  
She kisses Jack breathlessly, the way she’s been afraid to for so long and tries to explain the feeling. “I think I lost a friend today. She was never very nice to me, but she understood me better than anyone else and now she’s gone. She hurt me, lots of times, but only because I hurt her first. I can’t say I’m sorry and even if I find her again, she wouldn’t let me forgive her. And she’s right; that’s more than I deserve. Oh Jack, I’ve hurt you too, worse than anyone.”  
“Hey, you’re okay. I’m here now, and so are you. We’re getting better.”


End file.
